Android, iPhone users in India here’s how Google is set to change for you

Google is rolling out a personalized stream of news articles, videos, and other content to Indian users of its flagship search app on iOS and Android. This launch is part of a global rollout of the service called the Feed, after it was first launched in the United States in July this year.Shashidhar Thakur, engineering vice president of Google Search, said the Feed will be initially available in the Google app but they are working on bringing it to mobile Chrome browser in the future.“The Feed builds on lot of our experience with search and learnings from Google Now which was built under the vision that information should come to the user” Thakur said.The feed will offer a collection of cards to users showing news updates across various categories, highlights from their favourite sport or sports team (scores and news), trending videos and stories based on their interests or hobbies. It will be available in English and Hindi.One can tap the three dots on top of each card to follow the topic or share the story using the Android share sheet.Certain search queries like movies, authors, sports teams, music bands/artists and prominent personalities, will also start showing a “follow” button next to search results for users to start receiving updates and stories, Thakur said.On the flip side, one can hide the story item from the feed or tell Google not to surface content based on the topic or the news source. One can also tap on “Customize stories” for search for your favorite topics to follow or unfollow any topics that you had previously followed.Thakur said the feed will also feature relevant happenings around the user’s location. “For instance, users in India received updates about recent Mumbai Floods while users in the United States got updates about the hurricane in Houston.”“We can also group similar stories together and bring a similar clusters of articles to our users, providing a 360-degree view of different viewpoints and different sources, so our users get a diverse perspective of a breaking story.” Thakur said.Google Feed also surfaces older stories that may still be relevant to a given topic. “The feed is not only about articles that have been published today or yesterday. Sometimes, you have a new interest or hobby and old articles newly become relevant to you.” Thakur said.